Survive and Advance
by karabair
Summary: After 3x06, Torn, Anders looks for a use for his tactical skills. I wrote this for Quicknow, who wanted to see Sam & Kara invent a particular game. AndersKara shippy, though mostly gen.


"Foul!"

Anders blew the whistle and, of the six bodies on the court, five stopped in their tracks, looked in his direction, and dropped out of game pose. The last, a tall slender girl of twelve, scooped up the loose ball and ran it back to half court. "Foul!" Anders repeated. "Number six, gold!"

Number six swiveled on her back foot, lifted hands over her shoulder, and threw. Anders' eyes followed the ball up to the rim of the makeshift receptacle, where it circled twice before teetering off and crashing to the floor. It bounced back into the shooter's hands, a near miss. Still, there was no question; Niobe Cutler had a beautiful stroke.

"Niobe!" Anders stepped over the tape line he had meticulously laid out on the floor. "Did you not hear me call a foul on you?"

She shifted the ball from one hand to the other and put it behind her back. "I didn't do it. Artemis ran into me."

"No." Anders stepped closer and held out both hands. "You were moving. It's like we talked about. You need to establish your position, or the foul's on you."

The girl thrust out her chin and planted her feet, the way she should have been doing when she was guarding Artemis. "Why?"

"Because it's the rule."

"It's a rule you made up."

"It's a Pyramid rule."

She brought the ball over her shoulder and slammed it on the ground. "You _said_ this isn't Pyramid."

Anders palmed the ball on bounceback, and cradled it to his chest. "My game," he said. "My rules."

"My ball!" Niobe slammed her rubber soled shoe on the ground to emphasize the point and held out her hands. "You wouldn't have anything to play with if I didn't give it to you. No ball – no game."

The two boys and three girls surrounding her stepped back, a few laughing nervously. Frak. Less than a week into this gig and he had managed to get into a power struggle with a godsdamned 12-year old. And she had a point. There wasn't a decent Pyramid ball on the _Ariadne_; for the moment, they were making do with this oversized child's toy. Anders had been forced to improvise what he could with that. Now, apparently, he was going to have to write out a frakking rule book.

"Listen – Niobe –" And then he made a mistake; he let his eyes move to the side of the court, where the girl's mother sat perched on an old shipping crate. Hermia's eyebrows went up -- _Oh no, don't look at me_ -- while her daughter let out an exasperated sniff.

Anders breathed deeply, turned back to Niobe, and held the ball in front of him. "The defenders need to keep their feet in place. Otherwise they have an advantage."

Artemis – the girl Niobe had fouled, who ought to be thanking him – tossed a long braid over her shoulder and jutted her chin with a defiance to match her friend's. "Isn't that the point? To have an advantage?"

"Not because of the rules," said Anders, measuring his words. "It's a game. It isn't combat." Now that wasn't a distinction he would have thought to make, back in his playing days. "The rules should make it as even as possible, offense and defense. The advantage comes from being a good player. Mastering the skills. Then when you win, you know you were really better." The two girls eyed each other, and slowly nodded along. Sensing he had them, Anders risked a smile. "Or, that you're luckier."

"Hmm –" said Niobe, with a practiced eyeroll. "Why didn't you just say that?"

"Because I was blowing the whistle." Niobe held her hands out, but Anders stepped past her, giving the ball to Artemis. "And the foul was on your team."

"All right," Niobe sounded resigned, as though she were actually humoring him instead of following the rules. But she got back into formation with her two teammates, and, when Anders blew the whistle again, play resumed.

Anders stepped back and shrugged at the girl's mother. "Why didn't I just say that?"

"Believe it or not, I think you handled her just right." Hermia Cutler had light green eyes and a soft smile. She had to be several years older than Anders but didn't look it; her skin had the pale tones of years spent in artificial light. Looking over him, she said, "I was about to say you must have your own girls, but there's no way you're old enough."

"Actually," he said, before he had fully teased out the thought, "she reminds me of my wife."

Hermia raised a hand to her mouth. "I'm so sorry. I didn't think."

It took him a moment to process her meaning – what could she know about him and Kara, and how? When she lowered her hand and started playing with her own wedding ring, he understood. The fleet was full of half-marriages.

"No," he began, "I'm sorry – when I said 'reminds' all I meant -- " and it was almost as though he had called the voice up out of his mind and so, for a moment, he wasn't sure whether the words were real.

"This is the most frakked-up excuse for a pyramid court I have ever had the misfortune to lay eyes on."

"Excuse me." Hermia turned and spoke coldly to the figure that stood, half in-half out of the storeroom's doorway. "There are children here. Who do you think you are?"

"Captain Thrace," said Kara, raising an eyebrow, and Anders took in the restored insignia on her fleet-issued shirt. Her hair was close-cropped again; he remembered she had told him long hair got in the way under a viper helmet. "You might remember me from saving your civilian ass more times than I can count."

"Mrs. Cutler –" Anders sighed, with a nod at Kara. "This is my wife."

Kara bounced the ball off the floor and caught it with both hands. The slap of rubber against palm echoed in the cavernous room, now empty of everyone but the two of them. "She sure cleared out of here in a hurry."

Anders folded his arms, leaned back against the bulkhead, and tried to give her the stern look he had been practicing on Niobe. "Between the profanity and the insults, I can't imagine why."

With a quick bark of laughter, Kara looked around the room. "This sure is one frakked-up pyramid court."

"It's not Pyramid."

He tried to gab the ball. Kara yanked it away, set it on the tip of one finger, and spun it with her other hand. "Look!" she crowed. "Look! I used to have one of these -- when I was, like, eight." She lifted her hand and pointed to the spinning ball. "Did you ever learn to do this?"

"What, an Anders man? Play with toys? My dad used to brag how he put a Pyramid ball in my crib."

"And now that you're a grown-up, you finally get to play with other kids?" The ball started to spin off balance, and Kara shifted to catch it in her palm. "So." She nodded at the improvised court. "What's the object of your game?"

He reached out, smacked a hand on either side of the ball, and took it from her.

"Hey!" Kara cried. She moved toward him, but he bounced the ball against the floor so that it flew back into his hands. Kara darted for it, but he pivoted, stepped around her, then turned and sent the ball flying over his head. Both their eyes followed its arc until it hit the rim, rolled around and -- through pure dumb luck, really, teetered over the edge and landed inside.

Anders held his hands over his head and boasted, "He shoots, he scores?"

"You _scored_?" Kara repeated. "Because you got the girly ball in the --" She stepped closer and looked up. "What is that, a fruit basket you've got nailed to the wall?" She smirked. "What are you calling it? Basketball?"

"You know, I like that," he said, pretending to take her seriously. "It's descriptive."

"Yuh-huh," she said, a hint of the old Starbuck mischief in her grin. "Now. . .how do you get your ball down?"

Anders reached for the broomstick leaning against the wall. "Still working out some of the kinks." He walked across the court, reached up with the stick, and tilted the basket until ball came out. "Look," he said, holding it under one arm. "We're working with what we've got. Which isn't much. We could fit four pyramid courts in here, but we don't have enough equipment. Besides, the idea is to get these kids active, and they can't all play pyramid at once. Meanwhile --" He pointed up. "We've got all this vertical space. May as well use it."

"Oh, yes." She nodded seriously. "Good plan. Great use for your tactical skills."

"Isn't it?" He sighed, and ran a hand through his hair. "I'm not a soldier, Kara. Not by choice. I have a graduate degree in recreation management, for frak's sake. Meanwhile, all these kids in the fleet are going stir-crazy. I could show you studies --"

"You hate kids."

"I don't -- I never said --"

She held out a hand. "Forget I said anything. You're obviously enjoying your little atonement gig, though gods know what you think you did --" Her eyes traveled up the wall. "Net," she said.

"Huh?"

"Net." Kara pointed at the basket. "Replace that with a metal rim --" She made a circle with her fingers, then spread her hands out. "Just a little wider than this --." Her hands came down and closed around the ball. This time, Anders let her lift it away from him. Her shirt smelled like fresh laundry, which wasn't an everyday luxury, even for pilots. "We get some nylon cord," she continued, "and weave a net that catches the ball -- just enough to slow it down for a few seconds -- then let it go. You don't have to stop the whole game every time someone scores."

"Captain Thrace," he said, putting a suitable amount of awe into his voice. "I believe you just offered to sew for me."

"In your dreams."

He leaned closer. "That's not exactly what I've been dreaming about."

"So --" A smile spread across her face. That incredible smile. "You got a rack around here?" 


End file.
